MYOpera The Rape of Lucretia by Benjamin Britten - MYOpera April 29 – May 1, 2016 Aki Studio 585 Dundas Street East, Toronto About Britten’s first chamber opera, The Rape of Lucretia is a dark and tragic story based on the life of a Roman housewife. The original story, as told by the likes of Ovid, Fasti, and Livy takes place in 509 BC and the events of it are, in part, a catalyst for the founding of the Roman Republic. MYOpera’s production will transplant this story from Ancient Rome to mid-20th century Rome in 1946, as the country prepares for its first election after the terrors of World War II. Regardless of the historical setting, this sombre story resonates clearly in today’s conversations about consent and gendered violence. Production Team Lucia – Anne-Marie MacIntosh KATHERINE BELYEA Katherine is delighted to join MYOpera again for this season’s opera. Enjoy! Thanks to everyone for the warm welcome.

Credits include: The Magic Flute, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Il trovatore (Opera York); Brundibar (Toronto Concert Orchestra); Nature of the Beast (safeword); X, Transgender Seeking (Sunny Drake); Circle Jerk, Love Is a Poverty You Can Sell 2, A Hand of Bridge, No Exit (Soup Can Theatre); Nightmare Dream (IFT/Obsidian); tick, tick… BOOM! (Angelwalk); Wild Dogs on the Moscow Trains (SummerWorks); Medieval and Renaissance plays (Poculi Ludique Societas); 5 seasons at the Toronto Fringe Festival; sketch comedy. NICHOLAS BORG Nicholas Borg, Baritone recently finished his Masters in Opera at the University of Toronto with Wendy Nielsen. This summer he will perform the title role in Eugene Onegin with The Muskoka Opera Festival. Nicholas had a very busy 2015-2016 season with UofT Opera. He portrayed Ben in The Telephone, as well as Hel Helson in Benjamin Britten’s Paul Bunyan. Nicholas also appeared in The Art of the Prima Donna and The Fatal Gaze.

In the 2014-2015 season Nicholas performed the role of Sir Joseph Porter in HMS Pinafore and The Man with the Cornet Case in Postcard from Morocco. This past summer Nicholas was a member of the St. Andrews Arts Council Opera Workshop. Other recent roles include Peter Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Curio in Giulio Cesare both with Opera McGill, Count in Le nozze di Figaro with The Halifax Summer Opera Festival and Masetto in Don Giovanni with Opera NUOVA, as well Simone in Gianni Schicchi with Opera on the Avalon. CHRISTINA CAMPSALL Mezzo-soprano, Christina Campsall, was praised by SCHMOPERA, “Her sound is focused and rich, and her top is really thrilling especially for a mezzo with a middle voice like hers”, after her performance in Berio’s Folk Songs. OPERA CANADA declared, “The standout was Christina Campsall’s Hélène. She combined a beautiful, dark-toned mezzo with great acting and movement skills”, after her performance as the title role in Offenbach’s La belle Héléne.

Christina Campsall most recently performed as Ruggiero in Handel’s Alcina, and Elle in Poulenc’s La voix humaine, with The Glenn Gould School. Ms. Campsall has also performed as Laura (Die Freunde von Salamanka), and Lady Essex (Gloriana) with Voicebox: Opera in Concert, Praskovia (The Merry Widow) with Toronto Operetta Theatre, Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro) with Toronto Summer Opera Workshop, and Suzanne (La mère coupable) Summer Opera Lyric Theatre. ALIDA DOORNBERG Alida Doornberg is a recent graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston where she earned her Bachelors of Music in Vocal Performance with Academic Honors. Alida was a featured performer in the 2015 Chopin Symposium at the Rivers Conservatory in a historical recreation of a recital programme performed by Chopin in 1832. Alida is looking forward to singing the role of Cornelia in Giulio Cesare this August with the Summer Opera Lyric Theatre of Toronto.

Alida has so enjoyed the experience of understudying with MYOpera and hopes to be involved in future projects with this exciting young company. JACOB FELDMAN Jacob Feldman has been praised as a highly promising young baritone. Mentored by Russell Braun, Jacob has had many opportunities to work with some of the finest voices and teachers in classical music today, including: John Relyea, Neal Davies, Christopher Purves, Michael Chance, and Lynne Dawson. He is praised for his mature musical sense and quick learning ability. Jacob has grown through his experiences at musical programs and competitions: including the Siena Summer Music Academy, the Victoria Conservatory Summer Vocal Academy, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. In the 2015/16 season Jacob debuts in his first operatic role with MYOpera as Collatinus in Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. Jacob is completing his second year of undergraduate study at the University of Toronto and is currently studying with world-renowned countertenor Daniel Taylor. He is the recipient of multiple scholarships from the faculty including most recently, the Luciano Pavarotti Award.

NATASHA FRANSBLOW Fredericton-born pianist Natasha Fransblow is a sought-after recitalist, coach, music director, and répétituer. Over the past two years, she has enthusiastically carved her space in Toronto’s vibrant classical music and opera community. Natasha completed her Masters in collaborative piano at the University of Manitoba, where she held a position as an undergraduate vocal coach, and performed extensively throughout the Winnipeg community. She worked closely with the UofM Opera Theatre Department, and attended Opera Nuova (2013/14), UofM’s Contemporary Opera Lab (2012/13), and The Scotia Festival of Music (2010) as an emerging artist – her first forays into the world of opera, from which she has never looked back! Natasha began music directing with MYOpera in Fall of 2014. The Rape of Lucretia is her third opera with the company, and she has since worked with such companies as Summer Opera Lyric theatre and Toronto Operetta theatre.

Natasha looks forward to spending an exciting summer season on the East Coast, touring a recital of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin with Toronto-based tenor, Jonathan MacArthur, and joining the faculty of the Halifax Summer Opera Festival as they present Handel’s Rodelinda. EVAN KORBUT Evan Korbut was born and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, ON. He started his musical training at age 4, and from then played violin for 13 years. He has appeared in UWOpera’s production of Die Fledermaus as Eisenstein, and La Musica Lirica’s production of La Bohème as Marcello. He performed both Danilo in The Merry Widow and Guglielmo in Così fan tutte in UWOpera’s 2012-2013 season, as well as Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia later in 2013, and Dandini in La Cenerentola in association with FIO Americas in Brazil that same year. He is looking forward to once again performing in The Rape of Lucretia with MYOpera, this time as the role of Junius.

ANNE-MARIE MACINTOSH Praised by Opera Canada for her “effervescent coloratura,” “stratospheric notes” and “dramatic vivacity,” coloratura soprano Anne-Marie MacIntosh is an exciting new face in Canada’s opera scene. Hailing from Langley, BC, Ms. MacIntosh is currently a Rebanks Family Fellow at the prestigious Glenn Gould School. In 2015, Anne-Marie made her professional debut as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro at Manitoba Opera. Her other operatic credits include Mabel (The Pirates of Penzance), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), Adina (L’elisir d’amore), and Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos). She has also had success in many vocal competitions, including the Metropolitan National Council Auditions (Second Place, Upper Midwest Region 2015). A graduate of the University of Manitoba (M.Mus 2014) and the University of British Columbia (B.Mus 2012), Anne-Marie is a student of Monica Whicher and Tracy Dahl.

This coming fall, Anne-Marie will be joining Calgary Opera as one of their 2016-2017 Emerging Artists. VICTORIA MARSHALL Mezzo-soprano Victoria Marshall has been hailed for her “rich and powerful voice,” (Pierre Meunier, La Liberté). Currently based in Toronto, this season she has sung Mrs. Nolan in The Medium, and Moppet in Paul Bunyan with U of T Opera. Victoria was also honoured to create the role of Vashti in the world premiere of the science-fiction opera, The Machine Stops, based on E.M. Forster’s short recent highlights include singing the Madame de la Haltière in Cendrillon (Manitoba Underground Opera), and Cousin Hebe in HMS Pinafore (U of T Opera). Ms. Marshall also has a passion for baroque music and has appeared as a soloist with Winnipeg’s Canzona (B Minor Mass, St. Matthew Passion), and Camerata Nova (Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610). She is currently studying with Wendy Nielsen at the University of Toronto, and has formerly studied with Mel Braun at the University of Manitoba.

WESLEY MCKENZIE Wesley McKenzie is a Sound, Video and Lighting designer. Previous Credits: Sound for A Line in the Sand (Factory Theatre); Sound and Video for LULU v.4 // but you are not a dead woman (the red light district); Lighting for L’enfance du Christ (Pax Christi Chorale); Sound for Heretic (Soup Can Theatre); Lighting for The Fatal Gaze (University of Toronto Opera); Lighting and Sound for Three Women Mourn the Apocalypse (Old Norman Productions); Video for the marquise of O— (the red light district. Lighting for Barefoot in the Park and Wait until Dark (Classic Theatre Festival); Lighting for Fruit Fruit Mouth Mouth (Illume Collective); Lighting for KATA (Theatre Parallax); Lighting, Sound and Video for Intangible Trappings (Lester Trips); Lighting for I was once on Fire (Little Black Afro); Sound and Video for LULU v.2 // because bad things happen to bad girls (the red light district).

DAEVYD PEPPER Daevyd Pepper is recognized for his soaring lyric voice, engaging stage presence and musical sensitivity, and recently received his BFA in Classical voice from York University studying with Norma Burrowes. He is currently pursuing his Master’s in Opera Performance at the University of Toronto directed by Sandra Horst and studying with Dr. Darryl Edwards. Daevyd’s recent concert performances include C.P.E. Bach’s Maginifcat (York University Concert Choir), Carmina Burana (Near North Voices), Mozart’s Requiem (King Edward Choir) and Mozart’s Litaniae de venerabili altaris sacramento (COSI). Daevyd has recently portrayed Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte (Centre for Opera Studies in Italy) and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni (Toronto Opera Initiative) With U of T Opera: Narcissus in The Fatal Gaze directed by Tim Albery with musical direction by David Fallis and Johnny Inkslinger in Britten’s Paul Bunyan.

This summer he will be portraying Lensky in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (Chautauqua Muskoka’s Operafest), performing with the Ontario Pops Orchestra and traveling to New York to attend the Chautauqua Institution Voice program. DANIEL ROBINSON A native to Burlington, Ontario, Daniel is currently completing his undergraduate degree in Vocal Performance at the University of Toronto under the tutelage of Professor Lorna MacDonald. Past performances include Figaro in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro with Summer Opera Lyric Theatre, Papageno in Bloomington Opera Workshop’s Die Zauberflöte, Masetto in Opera By Request’s production of Don Giovanni, and most recently Toby in U of T Opera’s The Medium. As the recipient of numerous musical awards including the Walter Homburger Scholarship and the Anna Margaret Wallace & William McCoy Scholarship, Daniel made his professional recital debut this year at the Art and Letters Club and can be seen in recital at Walter Hall on April 30th at the University of Toronto. JONELLE SILLS Jonelle Sills is currently completing her BFA in Classical Vocal Performance and Bachelor of Education at York University.

Jonelle has had the opportunity to sing with the York University Concert Choir as a a soprano soloist in Fanshawe’s African Sanctus and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle. In 2014, she was the winner in York University’s concerto competition. In 2014, she also won first place in the NATS auditions and “Most promising singer”. In the summer of 2015 and 2013 Ms. Sills participated in the Saarburg International Music Festival in Germany. In September 2015, Jonelle sang with Oshawa Opera in their production of Puccini’s Suor Angelica as Cercartrici and Converse. Jonelle is very excited to be working with the MYOpera cast and team as Female Chorus. ANNA THEODOSAKIS Anna Theodosakis completed her Diploma in Operatic Stage Direction at The University of Toronto this spring. In November she had the honour of being the first student director of a University of Toronto Opera mainstage production with The Medium.

Past productions with UofT Opera as an assistant director/choreographer include Postcard from Morocco with Michael Cavanagh, HMS Pinafore with Michael Albano, as well as Tim Albery’s Last Days and The Fatal Gaze. In January Theodosakis joined Joel Ivany as assistant director for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s staged Mozart Requiem. This summer Theodosakis will be the assistant director for Paul Curran’s production of The Rape of Lucretia at The Banff Centre. She will also be travelling to Winnipeg to direct Manitoba Underground Opera’s The Magic Flute. Then she will return to Ontario to direct Eugene Onegin for The Muskoka Opera Festival in August. ALYSSA WOOLHETHER Alyssa is a multi-faceted musician, originally hailing from Regina, Saskatchewan where she obtained her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Regina in 2010. Later that year she moved to Toronto to further refine her skills as a performer and is currently studying privately with Mark Daboll (University of Toronto). Some of her previous roles include Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Madam Silverklang in The Impressario, and The Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto.

Alyssa is also a singer-songwriter and in 2015 she released her first full-length album Home, a collection of folk songs inspired by the prairies. Along with continuing to gig throughout Toronto, Alyssa is also currently a music educator at The Music Embassy in Etobicoke and a member of Florivox Choir. Alyssa is very excited to be a part of the Lucretia team and to work with everyone at MYOpera. MYOpera was founded in 2010 in Toronto, ON with a mission of empowering the artists and audiences of today to create the opera of tomorrow. We believe that opera is not just about preservation, but that the future of opera can be written by those that attend and perform it. Our company is designed to create viable development opportunities for young artists in all fields related to the world of opera: singers, stage directors, music directors, and more.

First Name The Rape of Lucretia | Wolf Trap The Rape of Lucretia Friday, June 10 at 7:30 pm Sunday, June 12 at 3 pm Wednesday, June 15 at 7:30 pm Saturday, June 18 at 7:30 pm Approximate running time: 2 hours The Barns at Wolf Trap – New Production Sung in English with supertitles Inside the Opera preshow talk begins 1 hour before curtain. Share: You can add this event to your Outlook, Google, Yahoo, or iCal calendar by clicking on one of the links below: Call To Buy Premiered in 1946 to re-open Glyndebourne’s theatre, Britten’s intimate and haunting lyrical masterpiece is based on an ancient Roman tale of corruption and tragedy. Lucretia, the beautiful and virtuous wife of a Roman general, is defenseless against the tyrannical prince Tarquinius. The horrific events unfold reinforced by Britten’s evocative score, moving arias, and two-person male and female chorus into a tense and potent tapestry of music and drama.

Pre-show Talk Ticket holders are invited to a free Inside the Opera pre-show talk next door at the Center for Education , one hour prior to each performance. June 10, 15, and 18 at 6:30 pm June 12 at 2 pm About “Opera at its most nakedly powerful”—The Times of London The librettist of The Rape of Lucretia wrote, “History is interesting, it may even be true, but it is useful only if it can re-create itself through art." The difficult but essential truths in Lucretia’s story have been addressed by visual artists such as Rembrandt and Titian, by authors including Shakespeare and St. Augustine, and in music by Handel, Respighi, and Britten. This opera by Benjamin Britten and Ronald Duncan highlights both the beauty and drama inherent in the story, embracing both touching lyricism and dramatic power. Due to mature subject material, this performance is not suitable for children. The Lucretia Project Events NEW! The Lucretia Project: four community events that explore the ways in which art grapples with difficult topics.

In partnership with The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Taffety Punk, and a series of prominent experts, we’ll examine the Lucretia story through the lens of art, music, literature, history, and women’s issues. All events and concerts are free and open to the public. Learn more . OPERA NEWS - The Rape of Lucretia The Rape of Lucretia Glyndebourne Festival 7/5/15 Lucretia (Christine Rice) and Lucia (Louise Alder) in Fiona Shaw's production of Britten's Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne © Robbie Jack 2015 Lucretia's Female Chorus (Kate Royal) and Male Chorus (Allan Clayton) © Robbie Jack 2015 Junius (Michael Sumuel) and Tarquinius (Duncan Rock) © Robbie Jack 2015 Benjamin Britten’s first chamber opera, The Rape of Lucretia, had its world premiere at Glyndebourne in 1946, with Ernest Ansermet conducting a cast that included Kathleen Ferrier, Peter Pears, Otakar Kraus and Joan Cross.

Albert Herring joined it at the same address the following year, but thereafter Britten fell out with the Sussex festival. With Pears and director Eric Crozier, Brittten founded a festival of his own at Aldeburgh, which made significant use of his own English Opera Group. It was not until 2013 that Glyndebourne — astonishingly, an entirely Britten-free zone between 1947 and 1981 — finally returned to Lucretia, which it staged on its annual autumn tour. On July 5, the work was once again included in the repertory of the Festival itself, in the same production by Irish actor-director Fiona Shaw that had made its debut on tour two years earlier. Over the decades since its creation, however, the issue of rape has made an opera with that crime as its central dramatic event a more controversial work than ever before. It was greatly to the credit of Shaw, working here with set designer Michael Levine and costume designer Nicky Gillibrand, that in this production the whole issue was handled with such intelligence and sensitivity — though it was far from being sidelined or understated.

The result was unusually complex in its presentation of the central characters and their interactions in a piece that sometimes seems as if its very subject might put it beyond the pale these days. Happily, that was not the case here. In the original, two modern characters — a Male and Female Chorus — comment on (and at times seem to encourage) the action of a piece set in Ancient Rome in pagan times from a later, Christian perspective. In Shaw’s production, they were presented as two archaeologists of the period around the time of the opera’s composition working on an ancient site and retelling a story that they were — quite literally at times — uncovering. The two roles were sung respectively by tenor Allan Clayton, forthright and clear, if not ideally nuanced in his delivery of the text, and Kate Royal, whose soprano — slightly diminished these days — nevertheless conveyed the text with skill and some authority. Lucretia was sung by Christine Rice, whose rich, mature mezzo gave her character stature, nobility and expressive power.

She was offered solid support by Catherine Wyn-Rogers, the contralto-like depths of whose mezzo lent Bianca a deep maternal warmth; and by the lucid light soprano of Louise Alder as flibbertigibbet Lucia. On the male side, Matthew Rose’s rolling bass emblematized the caring but ultimately ineffectual Collatinus, Duncan Rock’s firm baritone supplied sufficient vocal presence to match his dominating physicality as Tarquinius, and Michael Sumuel’s variegated bass-baritone colored in the ambiguity of the devious Junius, who promotes the crime carried out by Tarquinius for his own political ends. Britten scored the piece for just thirteen players, a force identical to those used in the later Albert Herring and The Turn of the Screw (1954); on this occasion, members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (one of Glyndebourne’s two resident ensembles) showed an absolute command of writing that is both virtuosic and inevitably exposed. Leo Hussain conducted a performance that was exemplary in its precision and powerfully expressive in its dynamic sense of dramatic propulsion. Send feedback to OPERA NEWS .

Opera at Peabody - The Rape of Lucretia The Rape of Lucretia libretto by Ronald Duncan, after the play by André Obey Kel Millionie, set and costume designer February 2, 3, 4*, 2007 Evenings at 7:30 PM; *Sunday matinee at 3:00 PM. Theatre Project, 45 West Preston Street, Baltimore Admission $24 / Seniors $12 / Students with ID $10 Tickets available from Theatre Project online , or call 410/752–8558 Peabody Opera home Benjamin Britten wrote The Rape of Lucretia on commission from the Glyndebourne Opera immediately following the success of his Peter Grimes in 1945. The opera was premiered in July 1946, with Kathleen Ferrier in the title role and Ernest Ansermet conducting. The work could not be more different from its predecessor in scale, however, being written for only eight singers and thirteen instrumentalists — the first of what was to become a long series of chamber operas continuing through the rest of Britten’s career.

Its combination of intimacy and stark dramatic intensity makes the work ideal for performance in a smaller theater. The original production of The Rape of Lucretia Kathleen Ferrier and Ottakar Kraus, Glyndebourne, 12 July 1946 The story is one that has been illustrated often by renaissance artists: Lucretia, the virtuous wife of a Roman general, kills herself after being raped by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of the tyrant king Tarquinius Superbus. Historically, this event catalyzed the overthrow of the monarchy and the foundation of the Roman Republic in 510 BC. Britten, however, chose to concentrate on the psychological aspects of the story, and the ambiguities of the relationship between the two principal characters; for example, the poet Ronald Duncan gives Lucretia these striking words when Tarquinius wakes her: “In the forest of my dreams, you have always been the tiger.” The rape itself is stylized, and its implied violence is set off against long passages of limpid beauty.

Especially memorable are the scenes showing Lucretia’s women engaged in everyday tasks: spinning or folding linen before Tarquinius’ arrival, or arranging flowers at dawn on the following morning. André Obey, the author of the 1932 play Le viol de Lucrèce which Duncan adapted, frames the action by two narrators, a Male and Female Chorus. Duncan goes further, giving these personages a Christian perspective on the pre-Christian story, with the rape epitomizing Original Sin and the subsequent action moving with difficulty towards the promise of Redemption. This device has been criticized as artificial, and yet the Choruses have the most passionate music in the opera (the interlude after the rape) and (in the simple radiance of their final pages) some of the most beautiful. The best modern productions do not treat the Choruses as detached observers, but involve them emotionally in terms of their personal relationship to one another and/or their guilt and horror at the perpetual violence of men against women. The Rape of Lucretia was last performed at Peabody in 1988, with Theodora Hanslowe in the title role.

The opera will once again be directed by Roger Brunyate, though in a newly-conceived production inspired by contemporary events. The conductor will be JoAnn Kulesza, who conducted The Threepenny Opera at Theatre Project in 2004, and led another Britten chamber opera, The Turn of the Screw, with Opera Vivente in 2005. The designer, Kel Millionie, was formerly Technical Director at Theatre Project, and has designed all the productions of Ignoti Dei Opera since the company’s founding in 2002. 'The Rape of Lucretia' review: Potent Merola opera - SFGate 'The Rape of Lucretia' review: Potent Merola opera By David Wiegand , San Francisco Chronicle Updated 3:14 pm, Friday, July 12, 2013 Virtue is on trial in the Merola Opera Program's production of Benjamin Britten 's tragic chamber opera "The Rape of Lucretia," and the verdict isn't as clear cut as it may at first seem.

What is clear cut is that the Merola singers have acquitted themselves beautifully in bringing Britten's early operatic achievement to life on the surprisingly acceptable stage of Everett Middle School . It may be momentarily off-putting to find yourself using the "boys' room" and "girls' room" at intermission, but the acoustics of the auditorium are perfect for Britten's ensemble cast and chamber orchestra. Written shortly after the triumph of Britten's " Peter Grimes ," "Lucretia" is based on "Le Viol de Lucrèce," a play by André Obey , drawing, of course, from a story first recorded by the Roman historian Livy and a fertile subject for artistic interpretation through the ages. Blame it on a bet The story turns on a wager made by Prince Tarquinius, the son of the Etruscan king ruling Rome, and two of his generals about whether Roman wives were virtuous when their husbands were away. Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, is the only wife to pass the test.

But Tarquinius, who, the libretto tells us, treats all of Rome as his whore, is inflamed with desire for Lucretia because of her virtue, rides to her home in the middle of the night and takes what he wants. Collatinus returns home, a shamed Lucretia tells him of the attack, he assures her that what was not given in the first place doesn't need to be forgiven, but she cannot live with her shame and kills herself. Mezzo Kate Allen took part of the first act Thursday to find her footing but became the heartbreakingly tragic Lucretia that Britten envisioned by the second act. Her voice has a particularly robust middle range, shown to exquisite advantage in her scenes with robust baritone Chris Carr as Tarquinius and in the first-act trio with golden-voiced mezzo Katie Hannigan as the old nurse Bianca and diminutive but powerful soprano Alisa Jordhein as the servant Lucia. The moral factor The Male and Fe male Chorus es are not just the observers they claim to be but, rather, the interpretive guides to the opera's moral complexity.

The Male Chorus was written for Britten's partner and muse, Peter Pears, which is to say: The choruses aren't secondary parts. Linda Barnett 's soprano is anything but light and airy: She brought thrilling vocal heft and rippling dark undertones to the Female Chorus. Tenor Robert Watson seemed to struggle at times with his upper register and overall came off as a little watery in the first act, but fared better in the second act as the truth-teller that the Male Chorus is designed to be. Baritone Efrain Solis displayed convincing vocal power and darkness as the ambitious general Junius, and bass baritone David Weigel brought tragic strength to Collatinus. Director Peter Kazaras has set the opera as a military tribunal, with the Male and Female Choruses acting as attorneys to contribute narration and interpretation of events. The setting enables us to understand the gray areas in Britten's exploration of a frequent theme, the tragedy of innocence lost. It is the intellectual base of "Grimes," " Billy Budd " and " Death in Venice ," but in Britten's treatment of it, the theme is never one of moral absolutes.

We often feel oddly unexpected sympathy with the presumed thief of innocence, prompted by an awareness of secret desire on the part of the apparent victim. Think of the seductive dance performed by the silent Tadzio in Britten's final opera, "Death in Venice." Superb concept So it is with Lucretia, who is immobile and almost passive as Tarquinius circles her like the libretto's panther. When her husband returns, immediately reassuring her that his love for her will not be affected by what Tarquinius did, she offs herself anyway. The shame she feels owes not as much to what Tarquinius did as to her guilt that she harbored secret passion for the Etruscan rake. The tribunal setting isn't just apparent good versus apparent evil, but male against female, Roman against Etruscan and, most of all, the internal conflict roiling in Lucretia. Although the concept is superb, the production itself is a little static in places: Kazaras depends largely on the voices to carry the dramatic tension, while the singers often stand in place - well, until Tarquinius goes on his rampage and dismantles the set.

The libretto is written in verse, and has often come in for criticism, largely because of its so-called Christian ending, as the Male and Female Choruses seem on the surface to be saying, "Too bad, so sad, but don't worry: Believe in Christ, and all will be fine." The ending feels as tacked on as ever, because it was tacked on, at Britten's insistence, but it also poses fundamental questions intended to lead us to reconsider any immediate conclusions we may have reached about Lucretia representing unsullied virtue and Tarquinius embodying evil. Mark Morash conducted the 12-piece chamber orchestra with convincing attention to the subtleties of the score and Britten's knowing interplay of light and dark tones throughout. Britten's operas are not performed often enough, but that's especially true of the chamber works, in part because they really need to be heard in a more intimate setting than the War Memorial Opera House .

Over the years, Bay Area audiences have been treated to "Noye's Fludde" in a former church on Post Street and the masterful "Curlew River" at Theater Artaud and will have a chance to hear "Turn of the Screw" next week by the West Edge Opera at El Cerrito High School . You probably wouldn't want to occupy a seat at Everett Auditorium for a five-hour Wagner opera, but it's just perfect for a 145-minute chamber opera, especially one as provocative and capably performed as "Lucretia." The Rape of Lucretia: By Benjamin Britten. Libretto by Ronald Duncan . Merola Opera Program. 2 p.m. Saturday (July 13). $25-$60, $15 for students. Everett Auditorium, 450 Church St., S.F. (415) 864-3330. .

The Rape of Lucretia | Opera review | Music | The Guardian The Rape of Lucretia Share on Messenger Close Formed by graduates from the Royal Northern College of Music, Elemental Opera is a newish company, whose aim is to bring a back-to-basics approach to the 20th and 21st-century ­repertoire. But whether their ­production of ­Britten's The Rape of Lucretia ideally fulfils their intentions is debatable. The piece is tricky. Britten has been accused of presenting Lucretia as "asking for it", while the Christian gloss that overlays the brutal pagan narrative now strikes us as smug. Director Gavin Magenty's solution to the work's problems is to present the Male and Female Choruses (Brian Smith Walters and Janet Fischer) as a traumatised Christian couple, concerned for the safety of their teenage daughter, who is involved with the thuggish leader of a gang of punks. This doesn't always clarify matters.

Tarquinius (Benjamin Weaver) and the thug are soon linked in the daughter's mind, which allows Magenty to make the point that neither the girl's wide-eyed naivety, nor the sensual self-assurance of Diane Hatfield's happily married Lucretia constitute ­complicity with male violence. Furthermore, Magenty's decision to give the Choruses a private agenda and a daughter skews Britten's purpose in presenting them as detached, almost Brechtian observers, while his re-imagination of the narrative in terms of urban violence allows him to duck the anti-war subtext that links ideas of sexual and military conquest. Musically, meanwhile, things are also uneven. Weaver, obscene and infantile, and Hatfield, sounding beautiful, give notably fine performances. Fischer is fiery and commanding, though Smith Walters is occasionally effortful. Adam Johnson's conducting is more incisive and committed than the playing, some of which is on the tentative side.

NEW YORK CITY: The Rape of Lucretia The Rape of Lucretia Juilliard Opera 2/18/15 The stylization that Benjamin Britten brought to The Rape of Lucretia could be seen as an invitation to hold its savage subject matter at arm’s length. The two singers who serve as Male and Female Chorus act as a distancing device, as does the high-flown language of Ronald Duncan’s libretto. The creators’ casting of the ancient story as a Christian parable, too, invites us to step back from its brutality. But Mary Birnbaum’s riveting production for Juilliard Opera, seen on February 18, stripped away the layers of artifice and confronted us bluntly with the sexual violence at the work’s core. The staging’s tremendous impact had much to do with its venue: Juilliard’s black-box Rosemary and Meredith Willson Theater, a tiny space seating scarcely a hundred people. There was no safe distance between us and the horror enacted on stage — no way to turn away. The story’s historical distance provided no cushioning.

The two Choruses were clothed in 2015 preppy garb; Birnbaum in her program note explained that she wanted to draw a parallel between the opera’s action and the “rape culture” on today’s university campuses, but we would have needed no such clarification to understand that we were being asked to look at the action through hyper-aware contemporary eyes. The unit set was a platform of layered rock formations, turned this way and that by visible stagehands. It served to conjure abstractly the opera’s settings, but its movements aptly made the very ground beneath the character’s feet unstable. Only the predatory Tarquinius could keep his footing in this precarious terrain; Lucretia could only succumb to the momentum propelling her toward her doom. The rape itself proceeded shockingly, gruelingly; the balletic grace with which it which it was enacted made it seem all that much more tragically inevitable. Conductor Mark Shapiro’s reading underlined the immediacy of Birnbaum’s approach. Britten scored the work for a chamber orchestra of thirteen, but in Shapiro’s reading, the climaxes had a near-Straussian power — a credit, too, to the conservatory’s gifted instrumentalists.

This was no hieratic ritual, but a viscerally compelling piece of music theater. If I had one fault to find with the music-making, it’s that the high-impact approach sometimes prodded the gifted young cast toward over-singing. The tone was established from the opera’s very first sung word, the Male Chorus’s “Rome!” delivered by tenor William Goforth with startling force, as if to command us to attend to the proceedings. He proceeded to give a brilliantly declaimed performance. But given the intimate space, it might have been even more effective if Gofoth hadn’t so often equated loudness with urgency. Similarly, Christine Price might have more thoroughly conveyed the sympathetic nature of Lucretia’s maid Lucia if she had more often let her fresh lyric soprano emerge without forcing: it was only at lower volumes that you could hear the voice’s quick, attractive vibrato. It was hard to find fault, though, with the two central performers. Avery Amereau’s innate delicacy of manner embodied Lucretia’s vaunted chastity, and rendered the character’s defilement all the more gut-wrenching.

Her smoky, contralto-like sound gave weight to Lucretia’s utterances —the voice was tinged with tragic forebodings from the start. Kurt Kanazawa used his suave lyric baritone to define Tarquinius’s nature — this was villainy swathed in velvet — and the feline grace of his movements bore out the libretto’s characterization of the Etruscan prince as a “tiger.” Marguerite Jones was an impassioned Female Chorus, even if her mezzo-soprano was not ideally pure of tone. Mezzo Amanda Lynn was a sympathetic presence as the maid Bianca. Baritone Joe Eletto’s forthright, appealing manner brought a measure of hope to the work’s denouement, when the Roman general Junius vows to win Rome back for the Romans. Most of the singers set the text forth as naturally as speech. The lone exception was Polish bass Daniel Miroslaw, as Lucretia’s unfortunate husband Collatinus, but the warmth of his tone and the nobility of his bearing were more than ample recompense. The production served as an apt showcase for all of these young performers.

But it was also as near ideal a presentation of The Rape of Lucretia as you could hope to encounter. Send feedback to OPERA NEWS . The Rape Of Lucretia Tickets The Rape Of Lucretia Thursday, August 27, 2009 through Sunday, August 30, 2009 The gripping story of Lucretia, a faithful and virtuous wife, dishonored amidst political rebellion in Ancient Rome, as told through Benjamin Britten's opera. Length: 2 hrs 00 mins Intermission: Yes Seating: General Admission You choose your seats when you get to the theater. The men of the Roman Army discover that in their absence their wives have been unfaithful to them. Only Lucretia remains virtuous. When the arrogant Prince Tarquinius decides to test her fidelity (and satisfy his desire) he brings about her utter ruin. Narrated by other-worldy Male and Female Choruses, told in Britten's unique and haunting musical language, and presented through Glynis Rigsby's starkly effective staging, The Rape of Lucretia is a heart-wrenching tale and an unforgettable experience.

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Question: Who composed the opera 'The Rape of Lucretia'?
Answer: BENJAMIN BRITTEN